Trains, Red Lights and Being Late for Work

This morning I discovered something that I imagine people living in Melbourne/Brisbane/Sydney/Adelaide have known for some time.

If you want to be late for work, get stuck at a railway crossing and piss off the Red-Light Gods (not the ones in Amsterdam...) so you spend all morning in your car screaming profanity at inanimate objects.

The longest train in history decided to pass through Darwin yesterday. The Council are so paranoid about people getting killed on the tracks they lower the boom gate 10 minutes before the train even appears on the horizon.

I sat at the boom gate waiting...and waiting...and thinking, that, of all the places I thought I'd die, this wasn't it.

And then this came past:



And 15 minutes later, guess where I was:
 


And while I was (loudly and profanely) cursing the train and it's time wasting antics, it dawned on me that I was being further enraged by the stupid club-crap music on the radio. But wait...this 'music' wasn't coming from our car.

I looked up and discovered the source of the jack hammering:

 

As much as I love tunes to the rhythm of doosh-doosh-doosh-doosh, I have to admit I was hoping that a group of rabid possums would break into my car and chew my ears off. Or eat the P-Plater's iPod.

Hell, even one rabid possum would have made a difference.

But the most tragic thing about all of this, was that while I was stuck at a train crossing for almost HALF-AN-HOUR. I was only 5 minutes from home. I still had another 10 minutes travel to drop the Toddler off to her grandparents, and then another 15 minutes to work from there.

I got to work at about 20 past 9 - when I'm meant to start around 8.30am.

I might have made it a bit sooner, but apparently these hate me too:

The rest of my day went without incident. Of course, I would scream uncontrollably "I was late because trains and red lights hate me! STOP ASKING ALREADY!" at anyone who opened their mouth to talk to me.

Apparently all they wanted to know was if I'd like to order a coffee.

And for the record, my outburst got me no coffee but, I was left alone.

Ahhhh - silence is golden.